


stay for the storm

by distr0



Category: Kill la Kill
Genre: F/F, Implied/Referenced Abuse, an artist/college au, economic abuse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-01
Updated: 2017-10-01
Packaged: 2019-01-07 13:17:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12233631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/distr0/pseuds/distr0
Summary: when hell over earth came, I stood for you





	stay for the storm

**Author's Note:**

> The concept for this AU started out a while ago, as a joke, and grew into something much heavier from there. Many thanks to [badgerjaw](https://archiveofourown.org/users/badgerjaw/pseuds/badgerjaw) and [cherrywave](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Cherrywave/pseuds/Cherrywave) for bouncing off ideas in the early stages of its development.  
> I have the vast majority of the plot/individual chapters planned out, so hopefully my schedule (and motivation) lends itself to seeing the story through to completion.  
> Sorry for the minimal tags btw, trying to avoid spoilers. I will say Ragyo features prominently later on, and is in part the reason I love this AU so much. 
> 
> Title of this fic is pulled from SZA's [Julia](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atc2_C-rW3s)

 

Ryuko Matoi took a seat on the least rickety of four stools tucked beneath a wooden bar table—a swivel stool with half its footrest missing. She plunked her backpack down at her feet, pulled her phone from her pocket, and tugged one earbud out of place so as to hear her music through one ear and the café’s background buzzing through the other. The sun shining in through the window at her back warmed her old flannel shirt comfortably where it hit against her shoulders. It had been unusually warm out lately—not the kind of weather she was used to seeing mid-September. 

A couple girls her age across the room spoke of trips they’d made over the summer: the one sitting on a floral-print armchair, three weeks in Mexico City; the other, sitting on a fold out chair with rusted hinges, two in Paris. Ryuko never understood why the ambiance of places like this café appealed to people with so much money. It was all so purposefully, needlessly run down. With a layer of dust and less meaningful arrangement, all the mismatching furniture might have passed for the kind of junk heaped up in stale corners of second hand stores. It was her first time here. She’d suggested it for the meeting mostly out of practicality. Popular enough, proximal to campus—and despite everything, decently priced, given the area. There weren’t enough gaps in her schedule anyways for anything much farther.  

She tapped her phone’s screen to life to check the time before watching it fade back to black. The espresso she’d ordered—it was the least expensive thing on the menu—sat steaming in front of her, and she hoped she wouldn’t tire too much when its effects wore off halfway through her shift later that evening. Closing short staffed on a Friday night was tedious enough without a caffeine crash. 

A fissure along the mug’s side caught her nail as she ran her thumb across the porcelain. She wondered if and when the pressure from the drink inside would squeeze through and shatter it apart. Waiting made her anxious—and the situation, more so. Remembering the stranger’s voice on the other end of the line when they’d spoken yesterday, though, reassured her a bit. Firm, concise, but not unfriendly. Hopefully not a total asshole.

_“I’m sorry, I’m usually good with names.” Her voice had a physically distant quality to it, no thanks to the poor cell reception, like she was holding the mic slightly too far away from her mouth as she spoke. “You said..?”_

_She hadn’t._

_“Ryuko. It’s Ryuko.”_

_“Right,” she said, like she’d suddenly unearthed it from memory. Maybe the old man at the gallery’s front desk had given it to her. “Ryuko,” she parroted, so that it would stick._  

Satsuki Kiryuin dropped a few coins into the tip jar sitting precariously on the corner of the cash register. At such an odd time in the afternoon, it came as no surprise to find the café so empty. She quickly scanned the main room one more time before heading, with her drink in hand, past the set of double doors and down the hall that led to the back room. Her boots sent hollow echoes of her footsteps sounding out from the hardwood flooring—it might have been just a bit too warm a day to wear them, but it’d been raining that morning. She’d wound up her hair into a bun to keep the heat from her neck.

As she neared the table set into the sunny recess by the windows on the opposite side of the room, she unconsciously shifted her hands around her mug to mirror the girl sitting before her. Ryuko cleared her throat and leaned forward out of her seat for hardly half a second, as though she’d meant to stand up and then thought better of it. Satsuki smiled softly at her awkward shuffle; she’d evidently startled her out of thought. 

“Hey,” Ryuko said. She didn't sound nervous.

“I’m sorry—you haven’t been waiting long, have you?” Satsuki took a seat on the other side of the bar table, setting her drink down before placing her bag on the chair beside her. Ryuko thought that she was nearly every bit like she’d pictured her, when she’d heard her voice yesterday. Her aura had bled forward with only a handful of words; she’d never met someone with so palpable a presence.

“Nah, I was kind of early.” It might have been insultingly simple to call Satsuki ‘pretty’, but it was the first word that came to Ryuko’s mind as they sat there looking at each other. If she had to hand pick a better adjective, ‘elegant’ or ‘handsome’ would have done it—but her unconscious choice of the word ‘pretty’ was apposite for Satsuki’s brand of decidedly effortless beauty.  

“It’s good to meet you,” Satsuki told her. 

“Yeah, same to you.” Ryuko laughed a bit, then. “Actually, I don’t imagine you’re super thrilled by—uh, all this.” She’d been a second away from saying _‘me’_. Satsuki smiled, and Ryuko felt her unease crawl up her spine again at how undecipherable that expression was.

Ryuko was cute. Were it anyone else, Satsuki might have thought the discomfort deserved karma, given the circumstances. But something about Ryuko roused her sympathy—maybe the way her eyes, blue and speckled in a way she’d never seen before, bore everything out in the open; or the way the little lock of red was pushed back into the rest of her hair so neatly, like she had a habit of tucking it away, despite it all being too curled and unruly to properly stay in place. 

“I’m not here to yell at you, or…” Satsuki looked down into her mug for a second and gestured vaguely as she tried to collect the right words. “…ask for recompense, or anything like that.”

“I am sorry,” Ryuko said. “If I could undo it, I would.” She’d walked into the café fifteen minutes ago feeling very much on the defensive in her anticipation, but Satsuki certainly wasn’t an asshole. Her countenance and the way she dressed told her she came from money, but she certainly didn’t seem the type to use her status or her parents as leverage. They’d be having an entirely different conversation were that the case. “I was gonna offer to buy your drink, at least. But you beat me to it.”

Satsuki hummed. “I’m not going to lie, it feels nice to hear you apologize. I suppose you wouldn’t have agreed to meet me, though, if you didn’t feel bad.”

“I mean, I know I’d be pretty pissed off if I were in your shoes.” Satsuki hummed again at that. She held her gaze for a couple of seconds and then looked down at the tea steaming in the porcelain cup in front of her. Ryuko’s eyes stayed on her, though—started to study her features before she really noticed how intently she was staring.

“How much time do you think it took me to complete that piece?” Satsuki asked, startling Ryuko out of thought. Guilt fell to her stomach and sat there like a weight. Maybe Satsuki wasn’t as nice as she’d made her out to be—maybe she was planning on sitting her through a guilt trip for the next half hour.

“I—I dunno, honestly,” Ryuko said after a second. Her eyes searched Satsuki’s expression for some sort of clue as to the right answer. “A few weeks..? I don’t do sculpture, it’s not really my thing. So I don’t exactly have a good sense of—”

“It’s ok, I’m sorry,” Satsuki interrupted. “I don’t mean to put you on the spot, exactly. I just thought—my intention is just to talk with you, to understand.” 

“Sure, yeah. Of course.” Ryuko was suddenly overcome with a feeling of not wanting to disappoint the woman sitting across from her. It made her wary, that she cared so much for the approval of a near stranger. It didn’t help that Satsuki looked so perfect, in her own way. Ryuko’s eyes caught the little strands of hair sticking out from her bun, close to her neck. She didn’t wear makeup, but her brows were impeccably shaped and her lips looked delicate, unchapped. Satsuki had an element of softness to her, despite the way she held herself, despite the strength of her features. It quieted the nervousness brewing in Ryuko.

“So, do you often work for galleries around campus?” she asked.

“Yeah, sorta. I started out volunteering about a year ago, and then started getting paid for it. I dunno, guess they get away with paying me a bit less than the usual. It’s still above minimum, though, so I don’t mind. I really only do it every once in a while.” 

“Do they ever feature any of your work?” 

“Nope, haven’t really managed to get to that yet,” Ryuko laughed a bit awkwardly, suddenly self-conscious.

“It’s sort of the same for me,” Satsuki admitted. “The one the other night was organized by the school; I haven’t really put my artwork anywhere else yet.” 

“What year are you?”

“This is my last.”

“Same here.” Ryuko looked down at her hands cupping the mug in front of her still. “Well, ideally.”

“You’ll make it through.” She offered her a genuine smile. Ryuko seemed like she had a good head on her shoulders—not that it was any indicator of her work ethic or talent, but Satsuki had a good feeling about her. “What’s your concentration?” 

“Painting and drawing… Now let me take a wild guess. You’re in sculpture?”

“I am,” Satsuki confirmed. “Though I’m also in painting and drawing, actually. Two concentrations.”

“Seriously? That’s nuts, I’ve never heard of anyone doing that.” Ryuko’s expression cycled from surprise to scrutiny in a matter of seconds. Satsuki certainly looked like she had enough money to pull strings in administration, but no one in their right mind would choose a work load like that. “Aren’t you dying a little?” 

Satsuki laughed a small laugh, like maybe she’d gotten the question a million times before. “Maybe I am, a little. I’ve taken more time, though, to complete my degree. This is technically my fifth year.”

“Hmm, thought you looked older than me,” Ryuko mused. “You like school, then?”

“It offers… a certain set of liberties.”

Ryuko raised an eyebrow, but the way Satsuki looked back at her made it clear she would leave it at that. She cleared her throat and changed the topic, “I’m surprised I haven’t seen you around before, what with all the overlapping course requirements we have.”

“I have kind of a weird schedule.” She shrugged and then picked up her mug to bring it to her lips, breaking eye contact in the process. Satsuki could tell she didn’t care to elaborate. Fair enough. She set one elbow onto the table and propped her chin onto her hand as she waited for Ryuko to finish. 

“Taken any classes with King yet?” Ryuko rolled her eyes, and judging by the way Satsuki’s eyes smiled, it was the reaction she’d been hoping to prompt. “I’ll take that as a yes.” 

“Fucking intermediate painting… What a nightmare.”

“I don’t think anyone got an A when I took it.”

“’Cause he always had something to nitpick at.”

Satsuki nodded slightly before adding, “Very particular.”

“Fuck oh my god what was it he always said…” Ryuko looked off for a second, digging through memory until her eyes lit up. “Blend, blend, blend,” she mocked, deepening her tone with a singsong swing, and waving an imaginary paintbrush through the air.

Satsuki’s smile widened until a soft laugh escaped her lips. And seeing the reaction she’d drawn out made Ryuko’s eyes light up as she laughed along with her. “I’d forgotten about that." 

“I guess to his credit he’s not half bad at it.” 

“Maybe more than just ‘not half bad’, as much as I hate to admit it,” Satsuki said.

“But his stuff is so… I dunno how to put it. It’s just the same shit over and over again.” 

“Stale.”

“Yeah, exactly. I can appreciate one, maybe two of his pieces, but then I’m bored. No variety, if you ask me.”

Satsuki hummed what sounded like agreement. At the edges of her vision, she watched Ryuko watch her as she looked down into her cup of tea. She felt almost a little silly, now, for suggesting their meeting—she’d expected something else, more of an argument, maybe. But Ryuko was upfront, and it became clear to her now that her mistake had been an honest one. Anger gently receded in the face of her curiosity—a curiosity that she knew had to do not only with wanting an opinion, but with wanting _Ryuko’s_ in particular. There was something she liked about her. She couldn’t put her finger on it—perhaps she didn’t have to.

“See, you’re perfectly capable of sharing your honest impressions,” Satsuki told her with a smile that made Ryuko feel like she’d just stepped into a trap. “So, what did you _really_ think of my piece you threw out?” Ryuko seemed at a loss for words for a second, so Satsuki added, “It doesn’t matter whether you know anything about sculpture or not, I’m just curious to hear your thoughts. As an artist, as a viewer, whichever.”

Ryuko took a moment to think on it. She wanted to provide Satsuki the best answer—so she dug and dug for the right word, sifted through exactly what she had been feeling that night.

_The gallery lights were dimmed and an eerie quiet filled the space between each of her footsteps. It was late, and a lone security guard stood by as she hurried to finish her job, so he could lock the door behind her. She wanted to go home. Impatience had made her irritable, and that, in turn, made her numb and exhausted._

_The piece sat directly on the floor in the middle of the room, unlike the other sculptures, which had been settled on stands against the wall for viewing. A mix of plastics—in hind-sight too bright, and too purposefully bent and twisted to be trash. But she hadn’t thought. She’d been tired and—_

That was precisely it. The realization hit Ryuko and she pieced her words together. “Honestly? I didn’t think anything, really.” She looked up at Satsuki for only a second, found her unreadable, and then looked back down at her own hands. “I was tired, it’d been a long fucking day, and the only thing I could think about was going home.”

“Ouch,” Satsuki said. “In a sense, that hurts more than hearing you’d hated it outright would have.”

“I’m sorry,” she replied on instinct.

“No, I’m glad for your honesty.” She said one thing, but that subtle frown, the way the corners of her lips dipped down with a purse, seemed to say something else entirely. She sighed and only then realized the tension she’d been holding onto as it left her lungs. “I put more time into that piece than I’d like to admit, to be honest.” Guilt washed towards Ryuko like a wave; it tickled her feet and pulled her down until it could rush around her, up to her ears. Embarrassment made her face grow hot.

“Pieces really feel like a part of you sometimes, don’t you think?” Satsuki asked. “Almost like… a page from a diary—a bit of _something_ is disclosed there. But then you realize what you’ve written means nothing to those who don’t know how to translate it, who don’t speak its language.”

“I guess I feel that… the part about it being like a diary. It always feels kind of private, to show someone a drawing or a painting.” Satsuki hummed again—that same, indecipherable hum that seemed able to absorb whatever semantic information the small, doubtful part of Ryuko’s brain immediately attributed it in her uncertainty.

She took her hands away from the cup of tea, now holding nothing more than little bits of dried up herb that had fallen through the filter, and with the slightest motion, turned her hand to observe the face of the watch sitting against the inside of her wrist. Ryuko thought that she must’ve said the wrong thing, or bored or disappointed Satsuki in some way, especially when she then looked up at her to say, “Did you say you had somewhere to go after this—I’m just realizing the time, I don’t want to hold up your plans.”

“True, shit, what time is it?” she asked, reaching for her phone to look at the time herself.

“Twenty past four.”

“Yeah, you got an alarm set up and everything?” A decidedly coarse laugh escaped Ryuko for just an instant, and Satsuki’s smile broke out at hearing the sound of it despite the fact that she’d started rolling her eyes. “… I probably should get going, though. Takes a bit to get to work.”

“Oh? Where do you work?” Genuine curiosity colored Satsuki’s voice.

“About thirty minutes from here on the subway.” She picked up her bag and slung it over her shoulder, was halfway through the process of slipping her other arm through the strap when she looked up at Satsuki and realized that wasn't the answer she’d been looking for. “It’s just a waitressing job,” she offered instead.

“Well, I won’t keep you if you have to get going. Thanks. For coming here, and meeting with me.”

“Yeah. And thank you.” Ryuko paused, seemed to hesitate for a moment, and then, “I’ll see you around, maybe? I mean—I’m sorry I wrecked your art, I get it if—”

Satsuki smiled. “You do still owe me, don't you?” Her tone was mostly joking, but Ryuko’s heart still jumped as she waited for her to elaborate. “Tell you what—I work in one of the studios in the main building's east wing, on the top floor. I’m there most evenings, late afternoon. Come by sometime, give me some feedback, we can pick up our conversation. And I'd love to see some of your work, if you feel like sharing. There's lots of free space and natural lighting up there.”

“Alright, I'm sold.” She smiled tight-lipped, trying not to grin too wide, as she bobbed her head once, the shortest of nods in Satsuki's direction. “I’ll drop by next time I'm free.”

As soon as she left the café, Ryuko pulled her phone from where she’d tucked it into her back pocket, made a note of the studio’s location, though she doubted she'd forget it, and then dug back through her recent messages to add Satsuki’s number to her sparse list of contacts. Work wasn't so hard to get through that night.


End file.
